Brace yourselves! An update will be coming tomorrow morning at 9am GMT+0 (Please note that there will be at least a 2 hour downtime) with the following changes:

Patch Highlights 2.3.2

Improved - Pike Balance

Pike units were designed to be very good at frontal engagements through the use of phalanx, with the trade-off being their vulnerability from other flanks. However, we (and you, the community) found that pike units were performing too well, even bordering on being overpowered. We received a lot of feedback about the turn speed of this unit and after an internal investigation, we found that this attribute wasn't in-line with other units, particularly while in pike phalanx.

To solve this issue, we tested a variety of different turn speeds for the pikes, while looking at the knock-on effects this would have on pike equipment and certain Greek abilities, before settling on the changes below. As of this patch, pike units should no longer be able to execute 180° turns in under 1 second, which increases their vulnerability window, and moves them closer to their original design.

Reduced the base turn speed on all pike units by 50%.

Reduced turn speed by 50% on certain pike equipment pieces:

Silver Shield Pikemen - Silver Shield Greaves

Thorax Pikemen - Resplendent Classic Greaves

Increased the turn speed penalty on pike phalanx from 85% to 95%.

Pike phalanx now gets the CD applied after deactivating the ability.

Cynane - Rapid Advance

Decreased base turn speed from 30% to 15%.

Decreased the talents turn speed from a total of 25% to 15%.

Rapid Advance now supersedes Phalanx Reposition.

Improved - Victory Screen

We've changed the victory screen because the system was still based on the kills/deaths system, creating a disconnect between what players saw on the new scoreboard in battle and what they saw in the victory & defeat screen. Now, this screen is aligned with the points categories, and this will hopefully help you to understand not only who the best players were, but how they had been chosen.

For the future, we’ve got bigger plans for this screen. We want to make it more exciting, more informative, and also more inclusive of a greater number of players. However, while we're not quite done with designing these new systems yet, we weren't content leaving the screen as it was in the meantime, so continuing to give feedback on how you'd like to see this screen evolve is helpful in guiding further improvements.

The victory screen has been updated to display winners based on points, and not kills. Now, after the battle, a random scoreboard category is selected and displays the best players in these categories for each team. The categories are:

Vanguard – Most aggression points

Guardian - Most defence points

Strategist – Most capture/decap points

Ally – Most support points

Balancing & Content Changes

Recent user experience studies and player feedback have indicated that the "Unorderable" flag on Scipio's Oath of Perseverance was causing serious player control issues.

To be more specific, the "Unorderable" effect is preventing the unit from taking any further orders when applied. The combination of the effect and the potential infinite duration of Oath results in a possible scenario where the player loses control over his units for prolonged periods of time (over 5 minutes). As such we have decided for now to remove the "Unorderable" effect from the ability.

Oath of Perseverance

Removed the Unorderable flag. Units now under the effect of Oath can be ordered around (move, attack, stop orders), but will still be Silenced (unable to execute other abilities while under the effect).

Rebalanced the ability:

Increased the speed penalty from 60% to 80%.

Reduced the base defence from 50% to 40%.

Reduced the total talents defence from 50% to 30%.

Bug Fixes

Added "Other Bonuses" to the player battle results screen to display additional bonuses.

1 hr long live replays should no longer be displayed.

Cloud replays should no longer load for a long period of time, causing significant CPU lag.

first of all barbarian archer are kinda useless there is no reason to pick them instead of greek

Scout's range is useless because there is no reason to play archer with Boudica when you can't use her charge and ultimate and you no tools to escape

Infiltration range is useless because you will in 99% of the case lose the ability after the first shot and again i don't know why someone should pick archer with arminius over dogs, cav and infantry.

Iron defense have a damage bonus for archer but (again) why someone should pick archer over infantry and cav with vercingetorix.

this talent are just a wasted spot, it's like giving germanius a bonus that work only with jav, leonidas a bonus that work only with cav ecc... it just make no sense

P.S. infiltration have a +10 (i think) bonus on moral that is useless since it's lost immediately after you get damaged even from a single arrow. To be honest infiltration is kinda useless in general, dev said a few months ago that an Arminius rework was under-work but since then there have been 0 news.

vercing difiance should work same as oath i know he is strong but still + also vercing ulty let use dog haandlers handlers only not dog itself.. jaw can use veng for germanicus but barb can use defiance?

To bad the scoreboard is such a pain in the [edited]for u guys. Really hope it gets what it deserve. Ive come across allot of players who are frustrated at not having a breakdown of their performences in a more detailed way. But its deff heading the wright way for sure.

vercing difiance should work same as oath i know he is strong but still + also vercing ulty let use dog haandlers handlers only not dog itself.. jaw can use veng for germanicus but barb can use defiance?

Second that. It is bugged the same way oath is. After the direct enemy go away the units just tries to go after him.

I know this is only in Closed beta, but will the direction of charging matter more, because recently, I charged a pikemen with cavalry, and I died even though I attacked their flank. Also, hoplites can kill units with phalanx even if the other units, be it ally or foe, come form behind. Even in Medieval 2 TW if I moved through sharpened stakes with cavalry it mattered if I arrived form the front or rear.

Nice change as the greaves made T10 pikes turn around so fast in phalanx that one didn't even need rapid advance for it.

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Increased the turn speed penalty on pike phalanx from 85% to 95%.

Interesting change though I doubt it'll fix anything unfortunately as attack orders give faster turn speeds but ye I'll have to see it myself. Could be effective to increase the skill ceiling in lower tiers.

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Pike phalanx now gets the CD applied after deactivating the ability.

Good. Though I haven't really seen anyone abuse the lack of cooldowns to turn instantly, this does fix one of the potential loopholes for avoiding the turn speed nerf.

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Cynane - Rapid Advance

Decreased base turn speed from 30% to 15%.

Decreased the talents turn speed from a total of 25% to 15%.

That won't change things, if anything, this helps those who upgraded turn speed on rapid advance because it was just too fast in the higher tiers.

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Rapid Advance now supersedes Phalanx Reposition.

Repositioning still exists after this patch? ok ._.

I don't even know what to say.

Conclusion: this doesn't change anything for pikes as commanders like Leo and Alexander will still be pretty problematic on high tiers.

Unless there's undocumented changes that change pikes or get rid of exploits, I don't see this pike and shot meta go away any time soon. Also change up knockback and hitboxes.